Caner Fired: Finney to Blame

In my recent post on Finney (Finney's Legacy) I posted two papers by Tom Chantry Pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Milwaukee. In these papers Chantry exposes Finney for the fraud that he was. Chantry says:

By no stretch of the imagination could Finney's Systematic Theology be considered a Christian book, for Christ is as absent from its pages as is God. Finney's christ is the son of god who became man to show us the way to heaven. There is no actual lecture on christ, so the reader might be understandably confused as to exactly what Finney taught about his nature. There are, however, two lectures on the atonement. Most of the material there is a refutation of the Christian doctrine of atonement, which Finney mischaracterizes as a "commercial transaction."

Finney left us with a legacy of deceit and deception. At the end of his manipulative career "...[he] had to acknowledge two facts. One was that the people in the region of western New York where he mainly preached were exhausted with revival and that converts could no longer be generated. The second and grimmer realization was that for all the excitement, the religious character of the region had noticeably deteriorated during [his] day. This area of frontier America became know as the "burned over district." An apt description for the damage Finney did.
Finney's popularity was such that through the years the truth of what Finney had done has beeb softened and morphed to hide that fact that man cannot "choose" to save himself no matter how emotional he becomes nor how many verses of Just As I Am are sung, while "heads are bowed and every eye is closed."
The larger problem, however, is that exageration, emotionalism, hype, and manipulation have become almost standard fare in too many American churches. Billy Graham popularized much of Finney's man-made religious nonsense which has permeated American churches, but now that chicken has come home to roost.
Ergun Caner former Dean of Liberty Baptist University in Lynchburg, Virginia has been fired. Seems he like Finney, embellished, exaggerated, lied, and generally mislead too many people and could not validate his Resume with facts. His lies caught up with him.
Fundamentally Reformed, a blog I read, has now weighed in on the subject. His analysis is well worth the time needed to read it. You can read his post here. In the article he says:

Without Finney, there could have been no Caner. The reason is that Finney’s influence has created an atmosphere within the Evangelical church in which Caner’s style of preaching, and indeed his multiple deceptions, might flourish.

I have argued that the Caner scandal belongs to all evangelicals. His behavior is a reflection on the state of the evangelical church at large, and we must all take ownership of what has happened.
Finney’s manipulation consisted of the “artful, unfair, and insidious” control of the emotional state of his hearers in order to bring about a “decision” which was anything but. We make decisions when we decide to take a certain course of action, generally after thoughtful consideration. Finney’s “decision” had nothing to do with thought. His hearers were whipped into a terror over the thought of hell. This sudden emotional state was a work of Finney’s art, and he knew how to mold it into a decision to follow God. He utilized every form of pressure to bring about the desired end.

So in typical situational ethical fashion, the ends justify the means if the one doing the manipulating is able to further his own prideful ends. Whether it is the "altar call" used to increase the numerical membership count of a church, or the elevation of a nobody into the status of importance of a University Dean, or even a Revivalist like Finney, these men think whatever seems to work for the moment must be right. 
Read what ever you can find about Finney, Caner, revivalism, altar call, etc. It is not a pretty picture.

The Shifts in The Moral World

In Colossians 2:8, the apostle Paul writes: “Beware lest anyone capture you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” In this verse the apostle warns his readers against being taken captive by false philosophies. Rather, he says that they should adopt a philosophy “according to Christ.” This verse does not teach, as some have said, that philosophy itself is unworthy of Christian study. In fact, the verse teaches precisely the opposite.

David Wells, in his book "No Place for Truth," points out the breakdown in our moral world has indicators. He pointed to four major sign-posts, indicating changes that hasten people out of the moral world that the West long inhabited. Thinking has shifted from the objective and/or transcendent, to the subjective and culturally relative. The sign-post shifts are:

    * from thinking about virtue, to thinking about values

    * from thinking about character, to thinking about personality

    * from thinking about nature, to thinking about self; and

    * from thinking about guilt, to thinking about shame.

Follow these, Wells observed, and you’ve exited a moral world. The Cross then becomes simply incomprehensible.

Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is, no longer have the categories to understand it, no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories in their non-moral universe — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty.

Chantry on Finney

I was raised in churches which always had altar calls. Like most American Christians I took the word of the preachers and teachers that this is the way Christ had decided to build his church. I didn't question my leaders, I just went along with them as they plied their emotional trade trying my best to "feel good" about my life.

Then something happened. I got into a jam in my life in the midst of which I told God, "I give up. If you don't do it, it doesn't happen." From that point on my life has not been the same. I had admitted to God and to myself - for the first time in my life - that I was not in control of anything. I was at my wits end.

I had to start over and re-think everything about me, particularly my relationship with Christ. I learned the hard way that anything I thought I was doing that might have value to God was viewed by him as "filthy rags."  So I began a journey to understand how it was that I thought just by doing certain things, acting in a certain manner, showing up at the church building each time it was open, being polite, and talking religiously had not protected me from what I had done to myself. After all, I was a Christian, and the churches I attended never talked about Christian suffering: they only talked about doing good, tithing and faith-promise giving and that God would bless everything I did.

I was born, bred, and raised a Pelagian and didn't know it. Everything I had been taught told me I was in charge and that if bad things happened then I had done something wrong. So, I began a journey of self-education to learn if what I had been brain-washed with was actually true. To my profound sadness I learned that most of it was Paganism dressed up as Christianity designed to perpetuate the little empires of the preachers and teachers I had learned from.

Eventually my reading and studies led me to investigate the Reformation. I was stunned by the concepts of Scripture alone and Grace  alone. How could these thing be? I learned that God's Holy Spirit does everything through the "hearing" of His word. I wasn't told I had to do anything. In fact the exact opposite is the message of the Reformation. Inevitably, as I progressed in my search for truth, I came across a guy named Charles Grandison Finney. I learned from his writings that he withheld full disclosure when he was ordained and that was enough for me. He saw no ethical problem with telling a half-truth but I did. So I decided then and there anything he was associated with had to be corrupt. As I read more about him, dug more into his tactics and beliefs, I have no choice but to stay with my conclusions about him. The guy was a fraud and probably not a Christian. But, his legacy as a fraud lives on in most of American Christianity in the "altar call." He invented it, and Billy Graham via television made it famous to modern Americans. Who hasn't heard "every eye closed, every head bowed..."  "your friends will wait for you," followed by "come down the aisle now." Those words are ingrained in Americanized Christianity just as much as "apple pie," and "baseball."

When I have tried to talk to preachers about their use of emotional manipulation begging people to get saved, among other shady tactics, I'm generally blown off as a grouch and trouble-maker. Therefore, I have quietly lived my life - for the most part - putting up with this stuff in the hopes of reaching a friend or two with the truth here and there.

Now comes Pastor Chantry who has written two very good posts about Finney and the legacy he left Christianity in America. Without asking permission, I don't think Pastor Chantry would mind, I have posted his papers under the "Pages" heading at the top of this page as "Finney's Legacy."

I highly recommend everyone read Chantry's papers and finally make an honest "decision." For many it will take a lot of prayer and thinking about things never thought of before, but my prayer is that you will be "quickened" and the truly "narrow way" will be opened to you, as it was for me.

Gun Control

Well, well. It seems the Supreme Court has learned how to read. They ruled that what the Constitution actually restricts is the liberal nut-jobs who pass laws restricting the ownership of guns for self-protection. The city of Chicago was the impetuous for the ruling. Someone sued it because of its refusal to relax its gun ownership laws.

For whatever reason liberals have always had myopic vision when it comes to guns. They impose bans and restrictions only to have law-abiding citizens be the ones unarmed and in grave danger. Chicago, the city which does not allow guns, murder rate by shooting deaths is out of control. "Citywide, gunshot deaths also were recorded in Hermosa, South Lawndale, West Englewood, West Garfield Park and Woodlawn in the last week...Meanwhile, the city's homicide toll for 2010 surpassed 200 homicides last week,"

Now, I'm not a prophet or anything like that, but I would guess less than .01% of these murders were committed by fully licensed gun owners. But I don't know for certain I'm just guessing.

I do know this - the statistics are overwhelming - where guns are readily available to law abiding citizens the crime rates have precipitous drops. Switzerland, which gives its men between the ages of 21 and 32 an automatic rifle, has such a low gun violence rate it does not bother to keep statistics.

Anyway, I should have my "jump through the hoops" CCW permit soon, and the Mizzus will have hers shortly after that. So, if any screwballs are thinking about harming two old people in Michigan they better reconsider. Here's what they will encounter:

:

His

Hers

Each of these is loaded with "wad cutters." These are unusual bullets in that they appear to have had their noses shoved in. I've heard what they do to the human body is not pretty. Anyway, we have another surprise for anyone wanting to do us harm and it is one of these.

Ours

So I'm glad to know I am now legal and that any moron dumb enough to try to shoot, rob, steal from, break into my home, hi-jack our cars, or just generally be stupid is in for quite a shock.

It will be interesting to see how fast Chicago's gun crime rate drops once honest people begin arming themselves.

It Matters What You Tolerate

I know I am not supposed to "covet" (envy might be a better word choice) things I do not have, but sometimes, darn it, I just can't help it. I envy and covet the kind of intellectual prowess of some of the men I read frequently. One of these men is Pastor Doug Wilson, somewhere off in the hinterland called Moscow, Idaho.

He wrote an article about tolerance recently which touches on areas I had never considered. Here is one quick quote:

[...] tolerance cannot be a free-floating virtue. This is because no virtue (or vice either) can be found in a transitive verb. It is not a matter of whether you tolerate, for everyone does, but rather a matter of what you tolerate.

What matters is "what you tolerate." I personally do not tolerate those among us who bask in the freedom given them by Christianity as they work their evil to destroy that freedom and Christianity. (See my recent posts on Sharia Law in Dearborn). Pastor Wilson says this in his article:

Christians invented the most open and tolerant society in the history of the world. Tolerance, as we have known it historically, is a Christian virtue.

Then he says:

Unbelief does not generate free societies. Out of all the explicitly atheistic societies that formed over the course of the last century, how many of them were open and free societies? Ah . . .

For secularists to treat believing Christians as the principle threat to their freedoms would be, were it not so serious, not very serious.

Pastor Wilson has written what I believe is a very important comment on the tolerance of tolerance that now seems to be such a "valued" counterfeit virtue among too many Christians. It is a sin to tolerate the repression of freedom on the streets of  Dearborn, Michigan under the guise of toleration. That is irrational, illogical, and one small step from police-state tactics and policies. 

I wish I had the brain power to write like Doug Wilson does.

Crucial Distinctions

This is from "Already Not Yet," the blog of Pastor P.J. Cockrell:

In the twentieth century, liberal Protestants put the Bible on trial and found it guilty of error, abandoned their dependence upon God’s Word, and replaced it with the lifeless lyrics of their own wisdom. What social Gospel theorist Walter Rauschenbusch preached, Charles Sheldon popularized; “What did Jesus do?” became “What would Jesus do?” Morality and social justice supplanted redemption, and the living Christ died again, this time buried beneath unbelieving, yet captivating rhetoric. He was not to rise again in the liberal Protestant Church.

The ability to make crucial distinctions is a gift from God. PJ points this out in his quote above by distinguishing between "what Jesus did" - the Truth - and our distorted desire to be God by deciding for ourselves "what would Jesus do."

Our joy as Christians is to rely only on the revealed Word He left us for guidance and not try to be God-like by speculating about what He would do. That is the hook that Satan used to trap Eve in the Garden: "You shall become as Gods." Because of this distortion many Christians have gotten caught in the postmodern belief system which has twisted the word "tolerance" to mean love or concern for every belief system and every human without the condemnation it and they deserve, Islam is the prime example of a systemic evil.

For example we often hear "love the sinner, but hate the sin." That is not Biblical it is the pacifist Ghandi from his autobiography. Jesus hated sin and he obviously hates those who refuse to repent from it. He sends them to Hell doesn't He? As a matter of fact scripture is pretty clear about this fact  as some were created for just that purpose. ( Rom. 9:17 )

So those who condemn others for their "intolerance" of the evil that is Islam make me wonder how it is they can say they are Christian while they themselves are "intolerant" of those who hold to the actual teachings of Gods Word.

Sharia in Dearborn II

My earlier post on Sharia in Dearborn elicited some reactions. One comment surprised me. My friend and Christian sister Jan said:

What would our response be if Muslims came to our church or a Christian function and started passing out literature? I know that I would call the cops to have them dispersed. Do we have the right to limit other people's freedoms under the law and under God (who gives us all the freedom to choose) because we don't like what they say? We know that it's not truth, but they still have rights.(Read her complete response in the comments to the article below).

What surprised me I think is the apparent misunderstanding about the Arab Festival that is held in Dearborn each year. It is not a private event, it is open to the public, and is held on public property. Streets are blocked off, traffic is rerouted, food and other vendors set up booths from which they sell things, a carnival is on hand, and Muslim mosques and Imams set up tables from which they provide written and verbal information about Islam. They solicit questions and often try to dialog with the curious as they proselytize. This way of doing things is as American as Apple Pie.

The fact that they solicit questions and try to dialog with non-Muslims is an open invitation for literature from other belief systems to be passed out in the free America I knew as a child. Only in Dearborn - to the best of my knowledge - is the power of the Police used to silence this kind of non-aggressive speech, Giving a copy of the book of John to those willing to take it is not aggressive. It is a form of what we are commanded to do as Christians. Give the gospel to the uninformed then allow the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts.

If Americans continue to refuse to confront Islam believing it to be a religion that lives quietly with those who do not believe, we are in serious trouble. I would suggest a crash course in history is needed along with a quick perusal of news from around the world.

A good place to start is by clicking The Gates of Vienna link in my blog list and reading as much as you can stomach from the news of this "peaceful" religion in Europe. The picture is not pretty and its' ugliest manifestation was seen in Dearborn, using the Police to silence dissenting voices. That is not the American way and it should not be condoned nor "tolerated."

Sharia Law in Dearborn, Michigan

Some things are hard to understand. What is happening in this video is not. Because of multiculturalism - the belief that all cultures are equally just no matter the atrocities they commit - our government no longer believes that unconstitutional activities should be legally prevented. No, what we believe now, apparently, is that any activity which offends a politically correct group is wrong and police power should be used to stop that offense.

The Federal Government refuses to enforce our laws against illegal aliens sneaking into the United States, and now they refuse to enforce the Constitutional right to freedom of assembly and speech if that speech happens to offend a certain religious group.

If Muslims were to be the one's handing out literature on the blessings of enslavement to Sharia Law at a Christian festival I wonder if the police would respond in the same manner. I don't think so. Anyway watch the video then tell me once again about our supposed Constitutional freedoms.

This is not the United States of America I was born into. It is the Peoples Republic of Political Correctness.

I like Driscoll

Some friends have looked at me with quizzically raised eyebrows from time to time when I mention Mark Driscoll. He is the young (relative to me) Pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Like me, he occasionally will slip and his language get a little salty. (That means he will swear when he thinks it appropriate).

Unlike me, however, and some folks I know, he was called to preach and it is evident when you listen to him. The following video shows him presenting the complete Gospel message - in ten minutes. He does it coherently, quickly, relevantly to listeners of any age, and with appropriate illustrations. The "Dude" can preach; and, I like him.

Lighten Up!

Years ago I heard a joke about a young man who wanted to join an order of monasticism which allowed no talking with the exception that every five years he would be allowed to speka two words. The young man was fully cognizant of what life without speech would involve so he joined.

After his first five years had passed, the monk in charge of the monastery summoned the young man to his office. He was told that his fifth year anniversary was up and he would be allowed to say two words. Silently the young man thought for several minutes then said aloud "bed hard." With that he returned to his cell and duties for another five years.

Eventually he was again summoned to the chief monks office. Once again he was informed that another five years had passed and he was granted permission to speak two more words. Again, the young man thought for a few moments then said, "food bad." Again, he was told to return to his cell and his duties.

Time passed and finally after 15 long years he was summoned to the office. The monk in charge told him that he had now been in the order for 15 years and he was again allowed to speak two words. Without hesitation the man replied "I quit." The head monk replied, "you might as well quit, all you've done since the day you arrived is complain."


Although this joke has a certain irreverence about it I still think it is funny. Perhaps I need to do some soul-searching. Anyway a friend sent me another irreverent monkish joke, but this time in video. I think it is a riot. I don't know when I'll stop laughing. (Do I need to go to confession?)

i-Pad steals wife

At 9 am a Fedex delivery person rang our front door bell. At 9:30 I had my wife's new i-Pad up and running. For all intents and purposes she is gone. Oh she's not gone physically, she's sitting across the table from me. She is so intent on playing with, learning, emailing, facebooking, etc., on this new gadget I'm not sure she will ever return to civilization.

At one point she asked if I would like to try the new toy, but then she immediately was distracted into surfing to some other place in the ether and that was that. I guess all I can do is wait to see if she returns.

I'm getting hungry now so I think I will drive over to Mickey D's for a hamburger. It looks like those will be my steady diet for some time to come. I wonder if I will ever be able to get my wife back.

Horton on Preaching

Preaching in our post-modern world often seems to be totally unrelated to what God actually says in His Word. Some of the things we hear appear to be designed to manipulate people into making a "decision" for Christ without any kind of explanation of why they have a need for Christ in the first place. The assumption is, as Joel Osteen might say, "people feel bad enough about themselves without me talking about sin."

Michael Horton disagrees with those who believe that some kind of "felt need" on the part of some people is actually a call to preach. Horton says:

"Surely you're not saying that a preacher has to be a scholar." That's exactly what I am saying. A faithful minister is not someone who crawls out of bed one day and decides that he is called to preach, and gets a few of his friends together to confirm him in his zeal. To be sure, the leading of the Spirit is part of the call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, but it doesn't stop there. If one believes he is led by God to pursue this calling, he must surrender several years to the serious study of God's Word and the tools necessary for rightly dividing it. He must know the proper rules for biblical interpretation. How many cults have been spawned by untrained zealots who couldn't distinguish figures of speech and different literary genres? Further, he must know the languages and be capable, to some extent, of working through the passages in the original tongue. But that's not all. He must learn church history, to learn from the wisdom and folly of the past. Again, how many strange cults and sects have arisen because Brother Fred thought he was the first person to really understand the Bible, when all he was really doing was reviving a heresy that was over a thousand years old? He must learn the systematic teaching of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, on the most important doctrines, in order to see how they all fit into a constructive unity. Otherwise, he will be unbalanced and confused in his preaching and teaching.

Unbalanced, confused preaching and teaching is causing more harm to the body of Christ than these shallow preachers will ever know this side of Heaven. I sometimes wonder if they care about what they are doing.

The Shack - Again

One again the book The Shack seems to be on the minds of "Christians," or at least the minds of the Oprah-like spirituality seekers. P.J. Cockrell said this about it: "...its success proves not how much this country loves religion but how far from mainstream faith the nation’s aspirations have shifted."

I couldn't agree more. The sad part of this whole mess is how many I know of in my church who believe the book to be uplifting and good. Whatever happened to discernment?

Towzer On Doing Church

Sometimes I have problems with what I see in church. Apparently I'm not the only one. A.W. Towzer had this to say:

We of the nonliturgical churches tend to look with some disdain upon those churches that follow a carefully prescribed form of service, and certainly there must be a good deal in such services that has little or no meaning for the average participant—this not because it is carefully prescribed but because the average participant is what he is. But I have observed that our familiar impromptu service, planned by the leader twenty minutes before, often tends to follow a ragged and tired order almost as standardized as the mass. The liturgical service is at least beautiful; ours is often ugly. Theirs has been carefully worked out through the centuries to capture as much of beauty as possible and to preserve a spirit of reverence among the worshipers. Ours is often an off-the-cuff makeshift with nothing to recommend it. Its so-called liberty is often not liberty at all but sheer slovenliness.—God Tells the Man Who Cares.

From time to time I've mentioned to my church leadership that a more formal structured kind of Worship service might be more appropriate. Needless to say my suggestions have not been appreciated. Oh well, I'll keep trying. Who knows, perhaps someday others may agree.

Train Wreck Theology

From a song by a recent Church soloist: "there are some things my god doesn't know." So much for God being omniscient.

From a man in the pulpit on a Sunday morning: "there are too many (of you) who are saved but spiritually dead." Does this mean heaven will have Zombies in it?